that's why it's so noisy. thanks, guys. >> there's the closing bell here. market comes to a close. dow jones industrial average down. welcome to the "closing bell," everybody. >> here's what we're following at the close. pretty good september jobs report gave the market a morning boost, but stocks reversing course in the afternoon, breaking the s&p's five-day winning streak. although, the dow is closing modestly higher. plus, jobs report conspiracy. critics say the white house is manipulating the numbers to bring down the unemployment rate. is there any truth to those claims? the former labor secretary weighs in. >> here's a look at how we finish the day on wall street. dow jones industrial average was up as much as 80 points earlier. the nasdaq went negative around

3:00. >> another winning week for the markets in the books from the presidential debate to the jobs report, investors certainly had plenty to digest, but can it be sustained? david just told us we can drop 20% before the end of the year. goldman sachs also putting out a very bearish report for the short term as well. >> and take a look at what's going on right now. peter, let me start with you. your take on the jobs number today. >> i think it was rather lame. i'm not looking at the headline unemployment rate. i look at u-6. that was exactly unchanged with the prior month. you look at the private sector payroll growth, barely above 100 thorax. it's lackluster at best. i'm not looking at the headline unemployment rate and taking that on its surface. you have to look underneath the hood, and you realize it was a lackluster number. >> dean, do you agree with that? is that why we saw a fade into

the close today? >> i'm not sure if that's the reason for the market fading into the end. i do agree it's a very tepid number. you had strong growth partly driven by the government, where the labor markets were quite tepid. >> what else are we going to see, rick santelli? what's going to happen in the next week or so? a lot of people arguing the earnings situation, we're going to have negative growth in the third quarter. what do you see happening in october? >> well, i don't disagree with that. i think the next week in my own backyard, we have threes, tens, and 30s. columbus day, the bond market is closed. the biggest issue for this quarter we're in is how much europe gives us a head wind. i'm talking more about what we've been discussing for the last several days. that is europe is systemically important. capital relationships, banking balance sheets, subordinate relationships. i think all of that as they

hiccup and the relationship between germany and exports in china is all going to give us a head wind. canada created 54,000 jobs today and they have one-tenth the size population. >> wow. doug, weigh in on the jobs numbers and what it means when it comes to investing in this market. >> the answers on the panel so far is why the market keeps going higher. everybody sees the clouds on the horizon. we all know what's wrong with europe. we all know the economy isn't recovering as fast as it could. in the end, you're getting paid 1,000 basis points in equity risk premiums. that's what you make over the risk-free rate to invest in stocks. i think in the end investors look at bonds and cash and say, what are they going to do for me and my retirement? they're not going to do anything. stocks are the only thing that can deliver those kind of returns. i think in the end the market grinds higher. in the end, there's way too many people who see all the clouds on

the horizon and reasons for not investing. i think in the end the market hurts the most people the most often, and most of them are on the sideline. >> that's what we've seen throughout the year. all the skeptics who insist the fundamental don't match what the market is doing. >> it never does. >> are we going to see some kind of correction in october, adam? >> i think we will see a correction. however, i want to distinguish the equity markets across the globe. for example, we hear about negative news in europe and parts of asia. if you dig a little deeper, you find many of the european companies have had over a year to adjust to a slower growth environment. we've seen much lower inventory levels. we've seen underinvest inspemen capital, which is creating a bit of tail wind going into next year. interestingly enough, asia is in the same state. what is worrisome is companies haven't adjusted to the possibility of slower growth next year. >> peter, what are you looking for next week?

what should we be watching for? >> i think the next three weeks is solely earnings. for two months we've had central banks putting goggles on our eyes. now the fundamentals can't be ignored anymore. they're out from under the rug. we get to hear what the guidance is going forward. >> so peter, on tuesday we're going to see angela merkel in greece. there's going to be horrendous protests, tear gas. we can just imagine. yet, we're going to be able to look through that and focus on the domestic earnings front here? >> the greek stock market was up 12% this week. the bond that's maturing at 11 years is at a high. i think everyone's beginning to it realize that greece is going to be given some slack because there's no other choice right now. >> in other words, it won't matter as much as the u.s. market. >> doug, we keep talking about the fact that the fed is impacting the markets. what's your take on this? could you give us some quantity

of what the s&p 500 would be at if the fed wasn't intervening in the markets. >> you know, i mean, market's at 13 times earnings. it's not like we have some human premium built in because of the fed. the better question is, if you believe what you say, which is the fed's moving the market up, then there's a global conspiracy against people who have their money in cash and bonds. because in the end, central banks around the world are deflating their kucurrency, and there's no worse place to be. >> and i thought the conspiracy was in the jobs number. teasing. >> conspiracies everywhere. >> thanks, guys. >> one final quick point, gang. a lot of people that don't trust the fundamentals still have been long stocks. we're not saying don't be long on stocks. i think stocks continue to go up. but that spread between fundamentals and what stocks are doing, there has to be a day of reckoning. >> got it. thanks, guys. meanwhile, something that could impact future jobs reports are the massive layoffs in the

defense sector if congress can't resolve the fiscal cliff. eamon javers is here be more. >> let me bring you the guidance here that the white house is putting out, sending to federal defense contractors in particular, telling them they don't have to issue notices under the so-called warren act, which requires notices to employees in advance of mass layoffs. here's the guidance. they said, it is neither necessary or appropriate for federal contractors to provide w.a.r.n. act notices to employees 60 days in advance of the potential se questionsation because it's uncertain whether sequestration will occur. what the white house is doing here is heading off the possible that defense contractors, particularly in virginia, which is a political state that is very much in play this year, would be getting notices at the beginning of november saying, hey, you might lose your jobs if we go over the fiscal cliff. the administration argues that those notices are not necessary

under the w.a.r.n. act because the fiscal cliff doesn't necessarily have to come true. also, if it does happen, there's no guarantee that any one particular defense contractor would lose its contracts at the beginning of the year. so we're not in that 60-day window. republicans, for their part, disagree with that. they they contractors ought to be issuing some of these warnings, and they suspect there are political motives here behind the white house sending these notices out to the contractors, michelle. >> we got all kinds of conspiracy theories today. thank you. >> there's a lot of that going around today. >> yeah, there is. all right, stick around. >> we're just kicking things off on another jam-packed "closing bell." coming up, the death of buy and hold. are the old school methods of getting wealthy off of equities a thing of the past, or is it an exaggeration perpetuated by investors frustrated by falling yields? the answer is straight ahead. plus, passing on genius.

it's been a year since the death of steve jobs. has apple gotten past the tragic loss, or is it steel relying on the ideas of its late ceo? and, numbers game? former labor secretary elaine chow reacts to critics claiming something is out of whack with the drop in today's unemployment rate. also, no room for a view. why did ikea exclude women from its ads in saudi arabia? brilliant marketing plan or a giant misstep? we'll assemble the facts coming up on the "closing bell." at optionsxpress we're all about options trading. we create easy-to-use, powerful trading tools for all. look at these streaming charts! they're totally customizable and they let you visualize what might happen next. that's genius! we knew you needed a platform that could really help you elevate your trading. so we built it. chances of making this?

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to help, sleep train is collecting donations for the extra activities that, for most kids, are a normal part of growing up. not everyone can be a foster parent... but anyone can help a foster child. welcome back. let's look at how the markets did for the week. we faded in the last hour, but the dow jones industrial average still ended the week on the upside. take a look at where we stand here. the transports also had a particularly good week, up 3.1%. that hasn't happened in a while with the transports outperforming the dow jones industrial. transpa transports outperforming for the last three months or so. nasdaq went negative on the day, but up for the week.

several stocks hit new highs in the dow today. take a look. let's look at a slightly longer view, how some of the dow components did year to date. these are the best performing dow components year to date. we have bank of america, home depot, disney, general electric, and jpmorgan chase. there's your big mover here. you can see bank of america, which came from a pretty low base, the big winner. finally, look at the top dow components for the last three years, and not a lot of pattern here. you have home depot, united health care, which is a health care stock, and disney as a consumer stock all to the up side. >> is the old time strategy buy and hold dead? more and more investors are saying yes after a decade of flat returns. since march of 2009, according to the investment company institute, investors have withdrawn $138 billion from mutual funds and etfs invested in u.s. stocks while putting $1 trillion into bond funds.

jacob says that's clear proof that buy and hold is dead. >> dan weiner is an adviser himself and says buy and hold is the way to go. daniel, to you first. many say the numbers don't back up your belief in buy and hold. why are they wrong? why is buy and hold still relevant? >> bob, i don't know why the fact investors are putting money into bonds and out of stocks means buy and hold is dead. it's a strategy. buy and hold means buying really good managers or buying really good companies and sticking with them through some of these ridiculous day-long, you know, market crashes, flash crashes, things of that nature. i'm not worried about what happens in the market in a day or a month. the dow has hit 30 record highs this year alone. the dow has hit 30 highs on a total return basis. so all these guys who think, oh, buy and hold is dead, you know,

sell main may and go away, theye crying in their soup. >> jacob, i think back to the magazine cover that said "the death of equities." you know when you should have bought equities? the day that came out. you think buy and hold is dead. >> i think the little guy investor is scared to death of the stock market. they think the game is rigged against them, and they don't have a chance. we've had the 2008 stock market crash, a lost decade, the facebook fiasco. it goes on and on. the flash crash, the high frequency traders. the people i talk to are more concerned about the return of their investment than on their investment. i think they're out of the market. >> jake, who owns all this stuff? everyone keeps say the small guy is out of the market. who owns all this stuff? what are you suggesting, a bunch of hedge fund guys own the market? >> over half of the market are these high-frequency traders. >> they go home flat every day.

they don't own anything. >> nobody owns anything. >> they're the volume creator, but they're not buying anything. >> very few people are willing to put their retirement money, their life savings in stocks. i think we have a problem, and we have to restore confidence. >> don't people buy and hold automatically because more and more people are being shifted away from pension funds and to 401(k)s where you make an allocation and it gets done paycheck after paycheck after paycheck. maybe they don't say, i'm going buy boeing and hold it for ten years the way my grandfather did, but they are doing buy and hold via the management at work. >> sure. i don't disagree with jake when he says there are a lot of investors who are scared of the market, but they're making a mistake. look at what happened. coming into the end of the '90s, you had tremendous gains in growth stocks and in particular in the s&p 500. so what did everybody do? they looked in the rearview mirror. they said, wow, the s&p, you can't beat it, let's join it. they threw money into the s&p.

what happened during the 2000s? they lost money. now they're looking in their r678 saying, wow, it's been a 30-year bull market in bonds, i should be buying bonds. they're doing exactly the wrong thing. >> buying and holding something completely different. still buying and holding. >> i'm looking down the road at fiscal cliff. people have seen these tremendous stock market run ups. then like the crash of '08, 2000, the tech bubble, et cetera. it shocks people, and they're unwilling to put any substantial amount of their money into the stocks. so we got to see some normalcy return. again, we've had a lost decade. you cited the numbers. >> jake inadvertently just made a case for buy and hold. all of those things happened and we're at a new high. >> but could this rug be pulled out from under us in a couple months? i'm just telling you the psychology is such that when people see huge market breaks, they just want to sit on the sidelines or stay in bonds.

>> that's what everybody says, dan. the last four years i've been more comfortable in bonds. i haven't been hurt by being in them. but not many people have seen a bear market in bonds. when is the last time that happened? in the '90s? >> when you get to '99, those are tiny bear markets compared to what was going on in the high inflation days in the earl '80s, right before the bond market started its bull run. we had interest rates at 15, 17%. now look where they are. the ten year at 1.60, 1.70. >> vanguard is still pouring money in. they're a monster in the etf business. >> they've taken in over $100 billion in new money this year. a lot of it is going into stock funds as well as bond funds. so, you know, jake is right that people are scared, but it wasn't

a lost decade if you are a balanced, reasonable investor. even a very growth-oriented investor, like the people who follow my news letter, they beat the s&p hand over fist, 5% annualized returns over that decade when the s&p was down 1%. over the last 20 years, buying really good managers in a balanced portfolio. that means even holding a little bit of bond money to act as a shock absorber. you generated returns that were two percentage points above the s&p on an annualized basis. i don't call that bad numbers for a buy and hold strategy. >> nor is it a lost decade. we have go to to go unfortunate. thanks, guys. it's been a year since apple founder and ceo steve jobs died. somebody says the steve jobs magic is almost out of the company and the stock's best days are now over. plus, some critics of president obama are crying foul over the surprise decline in the unemployment rate.

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price and demand have been gang busters in that year, some worry the magic that steve jobs brought to the company is wearing off. james is one of them. >> but jean muenster says apple won't be derailed even as jobs' influence becomes less and less. let me start with you, james. you say apple is not the same company without steve jobs and the more it goes, the more his magic is going to drain out. why? >> they've slowed their innovation engine. he was really a perfectionist and task master. if you look at the last few years, you know, nothing new has really come out from the iphone since 2007. i mean, this device is not much different than, you know, the original device. same thing with the ipad. so what's next, what's new, what's coming? all it takes is a few stumbling points. ios-6 was a stumbling point. >> when steve jobs became sick

and when he died, we asked the question many times. the steve jobs magic, everything he was about, was it institutionalized within the blood and guts of apple. you're hearing from other guests he doesn't think it's necessarily so. why do you think so? >> i would take issue with some of this they haven't innovated. if you look at over the last 11 years, they typically come out with a big product once every four years. even when steve jobs was here, i think it would be about a four-year cycle, which would put our next big product probably in 2013 or '14. i think we have a process of rewriting history. that's number one. number two is that the markets that they're in right now are still very big. i think that everyone who's on the show right now, if you had to give tim cook and apple a letter grade since steve jobs hasn't been here, it would have to be an "a." i don't see much substance to the argument that the innovation curve or they're somehow off their game. it doesn't add up. >> the iphone 5, is this

entirely tim cook's baby? did steve jobs have anything to do with it conceptually or engineering wise? >> it's not much different than the original iphone. i would say steve jobs had almost everything to do with the iphone 5. >> but doesn't -- >> it's not that much -- >> go ahead. >> let's go back to that. he said that it's a four-year product cycle. 2007 to 2010 isn't four years. it's three years. let's do some math here. they aren't putting anything new out. there's not that much in the pipeline. we've been talking about apple tv for a number of years. it's just slowed. but that isn't the problem. the problem isn't the slowing of it. the problem is how they're no innovating. they're not looking at small, innovative technology changes. they're looking at these big vanilla things like facebook integration. >> i'm not sewure what you expe them to do with the iphone 5. apple has a history of polishing

its products to perfection. other than a stunning new development, i don't know what they're going to do with the iphone 5. there's been plenty of failures under steve jobs. apple tv he was very involved in, and he had trouble getting that going. they're still having trouble getting that going. what new innovative product are you looking for that they can develop at this point? >> i would really love to see them put out new form factors and screen sizes. you look at -- >> they're doing that. >> you're hitting saturation points. no, they're not. this is the same form factor. >> they're doing a mini ipad. >> maybe. >> gene, what do you think? >> i don't want to get too detailed in the math here, but from 2001 to 2007, they renovated the ipod. that was a six-year window. it was on average four years. as a starting point. second is just the fine tuning of it. that ends up being innovation. as far as extra things that are

coming, we still believe this television is coming. we think it's mid- to late 2013. yes, steve jobs had something to do with it, but going from con stoe -- concept to an actual product, you have to give apple credit. >> all right, gentlemen. thanks so much for the discussion. got to go. hewlett-packard ceo meg whitman trying to create a turn around for her beleaguered company and stock. >> i'm confident 2013 will be the bottom of the turn around, and you can look forward to good growth in 2014 and 2015. >> does whitman have the right strategy in place. carly fiorina weighs in next. plus, ikea's magic trick. the company making women disappear from its catalog in saudi arabia.

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as we've been reporting, the unemployment rate dropping below

8% for the first time in 43 months. the plunge a result in large part to the household survey. >> and these figures have sparked a lot of debate. are the numbers for real? carly fiorina says they don't tell the overall story and the numbers are still going in the wrong direction. carly joins us now. good to see you. let's start with the jobs number. there's been a lot of talk about what today's job report says about the economy. you point out the top line number is not the whole story. what do you mean? >> first of all, i don't think it's a conspiracy. i think the top line number is clearly something that president obama is going to tout. if you look underneath those top line numbers, we see that the rate of job growth is decelerating, not accelerating. that's a bad trend. you have a lot of people who are now counted as employed who actually took part-time jobs when they were looking for full-time jobs. and we continue to see people taking themselves out of the labor market. they're just giving up.

we see manufacturing jobs now declining. so there's a lot of tough stuff underneath the headline number, but politically speaking, president obama is going to trump at the headline number, and mitt romney will try and talk about the fundamentals, and i think the facts are on governor romney's side, actually. >> so from one conspiracy to soot. we want you to listen to this. sticking with the economy and jobs, listen to what governor martin o'mally had to say about why things are not moving in the right direction. >> they want to slow the economy before the election. if you don't believe that, then i have a bridge i want to sell you in brooklyn. that is what the republican obstructionists in congress have been about. you can create excluses for thee guys if you want, but the fact of the matter is every single jobs bill the republicans in congress have voted against. >> carly, what do you say to that? >> wow. you know, first of all, i thought the democrats couldn't get much lower when harry reid took to the floor of the u.s. senate and accused governor

romney of not paying taxes for ten years. last week, nancy pelosi implied that there was no security at the embassy in libya was because the republicans had employed cuts in that area. they understand the economy is not helpful to them. i would remind the governor that the republican congress has spent many, many job creating bills to the democratically controlled senate and harry reid has refused to let them get to voted on. >> governor romney, the consensus is he came out ahead in the debates. do you think he's going to be able to sustain that momentum? has he energized the base? >> he's clearly energized the base. i was just in denver speaking to a conservative group there. i've been doing some women for romney events. people are clearly very fired

up. what they saw was a fantastic debate performance by governor romney. what they also saw was a contrast between someone and governor romney who understand the fooacts and could relate th to every day people's lives. president obama, it wasn't just that his performance was listless. president obama, there was though substance there. you always hear the expression sell the sizzle, not the steak. i always say if you don't have the steak, there's no sizzle. >> all right. from politics to the stock market. a stock you know very well. hewlett-packard. stock has been punished. meg whitman, the new ceo, is coming under fire. here's what she said. >> i'm confident 2013 will be the bottom of the turn around. then you can look forward, i think, to good growth in 2014 and 2015 as those products kick in, the i think vestments we're

making in things like i.t., sales, organization, and training. those things will start to kick in. i really think 2014 will be quite a bright year for hp. >> what do you think of what she said? do you have any sympathy for her? >> first of all, of course. any ceo who's in a tough position, it's a very you have to job. there's no question, as i've said before, that meg whitman was dealt a very tough hand because of a lack of investment in product development and research and development by previous administrations. the eds acquisition has essentially been completely written off now. on the other hand, it's also true that the autonomy acquisition, which was made with $10 billion worth of cash, that isn't paying off yet. i think the difficulty now, honestly, is it's not clear how much time they have. it's not clear that the things that meg is outlining, which are clearly the right things to do, but it's not clear they're sufficient for a turn around. investing in sales force

training is necessary. investing in i.t. systems is necessary. is it a turn around? >> let me ask you about the role of the board here and corporate governance. this is a company that's had several ceos in the last few years. what company could survive bringing in several different ceos, all of which have had different ways to run the company? doesn't the board bear some responsibility for the problems that this company is having? >> of course. in fact, i wrote a blog for cnbc a month or two ago talking about board accountability in general. i think boards aren't held sufficiently accountabilile for company performance. certainly in the case of hp, what you see is a board that has made a series of decisions, whether it's acquisitions or spinoffs and changing their mind or ceos, leaks and scandals and spying and everything else. i think they've made a series of decisions that have harmed this company without a doubt. >> when you say there's not

enough time, what do you mean by that? that could sound ominous. >> it's not an hp-specific comment. this is the 21st century. these are incredibly competitive markets. >> does that mean the stock goes to zero? >> i think it puts pressure on doing something to create a turn around faster, which means that all strategic alternatives have to be on table. i mean, hp, like every other company, is heading now into technically a simultaneous global economic slow down. i think it's fair to say. no technology company has three or four years to get its act together. that's just the nature of competition now. >> carly, thank you for your thoughts. appreciate that. forget the so-called birthers. we're going to have more on the jobbers. the former labor secretary reacts to the controversy over today's jobs numbers. $5 gas? that's what some are predicting. in fact, it already exists in california. find out if it will really

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or if you have any allergic reactions such as rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a 30-tablet free trial. zagat just gave hertz its top rating in 15 categories, including best overall car rental. so elevate your next car rental experience with the best. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. when the jobs report came out this morning showing an anemic gain of 114,000 jobs, some cried foul when the unemployment rate also

unexpectedly fell below 8% to 7.8. here's what the former general electric ceo jack welch tweeted. unbelievable jobs numbers. these chicago guys will do anything. can't debate, so change the numbers. >> plus, arizona senator and former republican candidate john mccain saying this on cnbc earlier today. >> i question exactly what those numbers are. our discussion about the w.a.r.n. act that just took place where they're in blatant violation of the law. i wouldn't put anything past this administration. >> by the way, the w.a.r.n. act he refers to requires businesses to tell employees about potential layoffs 60 days in advance. here with reangction, former lar secretary elaine chow. thanks very much for joining us. you were the labor secretary.

you had the national butreau of labor statistics under you. what do you think about this possibility of a conspiracy? >> when i was at the department of labor, i think the bureau of labor statistics was very professional. they did a very good job. i don't know what's happening now. i can't speak to that. but the fact that this administration has delayed the issuance of these legally mandated layoff notices is astounding. that has never happened before. under the law, any employer, including the government, is supposed to notify the workers 60 days prior to termination that they are indeed going to be facing termination. so for this administration to unilaterally issue a direct order to not issue it is quite astounding. >> if we could go back to the

jobs number, you could probably give us some insight. if, indeed, there was some possible way to manipulate the numbers, how many people would it take? two, ten? i mean, give us insight into how it works. >> i think the real story with these unemployment numbers are, number one, that what we're seeing with the unemployment rate drop is the marginally attached workers moving into part-time jobs. that accounted for the increase in some of the new jobs that are created. the second factor is there are really two indices. two surveys, which give rise to -- >> with all do respect, that wasn't the spirit of the question though. our first question was, do you think there's a conspiracy? >> i stated my answer. >> you said you don't know what's going on. do you think it's possible, then? >> i think at the bureau of labor statistics, it would be very difficult. but if you hold off on the w.a.r.n. act and you are not

laying off those people and giving them notice, that also inflates the overall work force. that, possibly, could be happening. most of all, the drop in the unemployment rate is due to the house hold survey, which is a smaller survey of 60,000 households. there's also a survey called the payroll establishment survey. that adjusts for the number of new jobs created. >> could that survey have been manipulated then? >> i think it's hard to manipulate either one of them. the household survey is a smaller sample, so when the unemployment rate drops, that is a very volatile number. that does not talk about a trend. i think you have to take a look at the long-term trend and look at more than one month. >> the bottom line is this, and we're trying to get at this wonky statistical question. you had people under you, professional statisticians. they're still there.

many of them probably worked under you. they're a standard statistical model for figuring this out. if they had more money, maybe they could get more accurate models. would you support the idea we ought to have better economic forecasting and spend more money on that? >> it's not a matter of money. our work force numbers 157 million people. we're asking within one month to gauge the movement of the unemployment rate of one-tenth of 1%. there will be revisions in the second month and the third month. that is why these numbers cannot be taken on a monthly basis. you have to take a look at the trend line. you also have to look at other economic indices, which indicate this is -- this could be quite -- this is like an anomaly. with the anemic gdp rate of only 1.2%, you would not expect a great burst of job creation. that is not the underlying economic activity. >> great context in terms of

figuring out monthly numbers when you have such a huge population. thank you. >> thank you. >> of course, the bottom line is the numbers vary because it's very difficult to get a beat on that. there are other ways you can get statistics. >> one-tenth of 1% of the population. amaze. oil closing lower for a third straight week, so why is gas surging? that's next. and you've heard of the invisible man. ikea's saudi catalog debuted the invisible woman, but it's the why the women were taken out that has some people burning mad. we'll have that story. michael phelps made his name in swimming, but you have to stick around to see this whole video that we're going to show you. he may have a future on the pga tour. you got to stick around. don't move. >> that wasn't the putt we want to show you. >> it's better.

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jack welch put out this controversial tweet this morning suggesting that the labor department numbers were manipulated, that that's how unemployment got to below 8%. he is going to be on kudlow tonight at 7:00 p.m. >> this was the tweet heard

round the world, at least today. so far, he seems to be sticking by his guns. at first when i saw it, i thought maybe he's getting a little emotional here. i was rather startled. was a tw heard round the world, when something like that catches fire, it's because a lot of people are like, huh, i wonder the same thing. >> i'm surprised. i don't believe any of this conspiracy story and we're going to hear why jack welch believes it himself. meantime he's the greatest swimmer in history but look at this. michael phelps has moved out of the pool onto the green. an estimated 50 yards from the dunhill links in scotland. >> there he is. 15, 14. this particular shot -- it fell into the record books with the televised putt. he and his professional partner

paul casey an impressive nine under par. >> now he has a record in golf as well. that's amazing. >> perfect. >> all right. californians are looking at record high prices at the gas pump, this despite oil falling 2%. that's bringing the commodity down more than 6% in a month. do they see it going still lower and will it take the gas with it? >> you know brian. where are traders more bearish right now. are they more bearish on oil on gasoline? >> a lot of put activity evolving in both gas and oil in future contracts but certainly a lot more bearishness in oil. seeing it potentially a head lower. we saw some trading activity on the november puts. they traded around 22 cents. that oil continues to fall roughly over 10%. so certainly a lot of bearish

activity. volatility is increasing in these products. the cost to ensure an oils future contract has risen in the last month. certainly people concerning about where it's going. gasoline hanging in there because of the refining capacity out there. we hear about the gas stations having to close out in california. i think gasoline find as bid there. in the meantime i think, you know, oil could head to around that $80 a barrel. no problem next month. >> thank you so much, for more options inside, stay tuned for "options action" straight ahead at the top of the hour. >> i kika creating controversy after erasing women in the catalog in saudi arabia. >> that's up after the break. k kika creating controversy after erasing women in the catalog in saudi arabia. >> that's up after the break. ea controversy after erasing women in the catalog in saudi arabia. >> that's up after the break. cr after erasing women in the

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been airbrushed out of the saudi catalog. >> are companies going too far to do business in certain nations, sacrificing the values and caving to government demands. she thinks so but emily miller of "the washington times" says it's just business. >> it's just business? tell me why. >> well, look. i think there has to be some kind of line. if a company has to stand for something, at what point is the discrimination too much? there have to be lines. second of all, it's harder and harder to keep separated now what you're doing in one country as opposed to another. so at this point i kika is not only impandering to saudi arabia, it's not only violated its core value but it's made itself the butt of internet jokes and other countries are affected. >> let's bring in emily miller, she's the senior editor at "the washington times."

emily? >> i think ikea was wrong to apologize. they made a business decision. their local affiliate said it's offensive here to have a woman in your catalog in pajamas. they took her out. it's a smart business decision. they haven't pulled out their catal catalogs. i don't know why ikea has apologized except they've gotten whaled by these politicians. >> what's wrong with a company making a decision based upon local culture? is it really a human rights issue at this point? >> i think human rights issues would be overwrought. whose local culture? in saudi arabia you have women advocated for public life. >> there is no law in saudi arabia that women can't be in advertising. it's just a matter of respect for their culture and women are

covered up. but, you know, this whole concept that a company has values, you know, i kika is not the united nations.kea is a coms in selling product. if it's better if them to sell book shelves and baskets by cutting out a woman in her pajamas in saudi arabia, good for them. >> think also customers are making decisions based on what they see as the value. >> to that point, the argument is they wouldn't have sales in saudi arabia if it was -- they were following your line of thinking. >> i'm sorry, wouldn't have -- >> they wouldn't have as many sales. >> right. but it's bagger world than just saudi arabia. now they have a real problem in their home base which is ee egalitarian country. thing consumers can make a decision whether that matters to

them and that's globally true. >> should they have global standards? >> i think it should be, you know, whatever they make money. they have shareholders. starbucks did the same thing in saudi arabia. when they went in, they took out their logo with the woman with the long hair and left the crown because that was offensive to arabs and maybe they wouldn't sell well or go into their starbucks and buy a latte. as lodge as they're not hurting anyone or committing any crime, then, you know, let them do their business. >> ladies, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> thanks. >> all right. before we go, here's a look at the day on wall street. it started looking pretty good, bob. we were higher across the board but in the end it averaged mixed. >> that was up as much as 85 points. in the last hour and a half or so, we ended up with gains. we ended up with 1% on the week and a number of dow stocks closing. >> i think the way we finish the